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Jan 24, 2012

Paul rated it:

The problem with mysteries – for me, anyway, is that I don't care who did it. Which is a drawback. I just think well, it's one of those characters the author has given a name to, it won't be the fourth man back on the upper deck of the omnibus mentioned briefly on page 211. It will be someone with a name. And further, it will be someone who you don't think it will be, because that's the whole point. You don't think it's going to be that person so it's a surprise. So, if it turns out to be the no More...

13 comments like (16 people liked it)

Sep 28, 2008

Kathryn rated it:

This is supposedly one of the first mystery novels ever published and is believed to introduce the prototype for the English detective hero character. It is also the first book in the Tyler-and-Kate Book Club; I will always love it because it's one of the only books Tyler and I could decide on to read together and it was wonderfully absorbing and provided us with lots of grand characters and interesting plot twists to enjoy—and the mystery to ponder!

It's certainly very long and oft More...

11 comments like (13 people liked it)

Feb 03, 2009

Bruce rated it:

What a fine fine book this is. I am so surprised that it has taken me so long to get to it given how much I love Victorian Era British Novels. I think perhaps that is because of how slow a book I found the Woman in White to be. I finally picked up the Moonstone three days ago, and have read through it virtually nonstop.

This is often described as the first real detective novel in the English language, and as such you might expect it to be completely plot driven. That is not the More...

1 comment like (11 people liked it)

May 11, 2008

Keely rated it:

Perhaps it is not surprising that I managed to guess the 'who', if not the how of this prototype mystery. What may be somewhat of a surprise is that this recognition did not make the book tedious, nor did it become a plodding step-by-step towards inevitability like many mysteries are.

Like The Virginian, this predecessor of a genre never seems to fall into the same traps as its innumerable followers. Indeed, with both these books, the focus itself becomes something entirely different More...

2 comments like (7 people liked it)

Dec 14, 2011

Sean rated it:

The following is a recently found letter written by the English author Charles Dickens to his friend Wilkie Collins concerning the latter’s newly released 1868 novel The Moonstone:

Charles Dickens
11 Gad’s Hill Place
Hingham, Kent
England

November 13, 1868

Dear Wilkie,

I am now pressing my pen against this paper to congratulate you on the success of your excellent new novel, The Moonstone. I have just completed reading it and I wou More...

5 comments like (6 people liked it)

Feb 04, 2009

Daniel rated it:

I was torn between giving two stars and three stars to Wilkie Collins's "The Moonstone," a book T. S. Eliot called "the first, the longest, and the best of modern English detective novels." "Longest" is perhaps the operative word here, reminding one of Samuel Johnson's comment (speaking, in his case, of Milton's "Paradise Lost") that none ever wished it longer. "The Moonstone"'s length, in the end, is its chief and perhaps only major failing. Lar More...

7 comments like (10 people liked it)

Nov 28, 2011

Rory rated it:

I'd kept reading about this book--how it was the original murder mystery, how it inspired so many others, how it was so exciting. I mean, T. S. Eliot famously said it was "the first, the longest, and the best of modern English detective novels". I adore really old who-dunnits. Heck, I love books written in 1868. So I couldn't wait to get my hands on it. And I thought I'd give it its due by reading all the intro material. Yay, context.

And then...a couple paragraphs into the More...

3 comments like (2 people liked it)

Nov 09, 2010

Hayes rated it:

The classic mystery with an armchair detective (who consults with Robinson Crusoe, the book, for inspiration), a beautiful heiress, "evil Hindoos", and the missing gem... in short, something for everyone!!

- - - - - - - - - - -

This time listening through BBC Radio 7:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00d54k5...

Very good adaption, which did not include Betteridge's "discussions" with Robinson Crusoe. A shame, but necessary for the script.

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Dec 14, 2011

Ed rated it:

The Moonstone is an epistolary novel, written by Wilkie Collins and first published in 1868. It is set about 20 years earlier. I found the pace of the novel to be a little slow but built to a great end. The central conceit of the novel is that what we are reading is a collection of written statements from a variety of people who were witness in some manner to the theft of an Indian diamond called the "Moonstone". The voice is excellent throughout and changes a bit in each section with More...

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Mar 02, 2009

Michelle rated it:

It took me a while to get into this book. Collins took his time in setting up the story, the crime, the characters. It really started to pick up after the first narrative, and I flew through 300 pages in a couple of days.

The Moonstone is considered a classic, and because Collins was a contemporary of Dickens, you expect the book to be heavier, maybe even dull at times. It's actually surprisingly modern and even funny! All of the characters have their moments--Miss Clack is crazy, the More...

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Jan 18, 2012

Francine rated it:

I've missed reading the classics, especially British Lit. When I first started reading The Moonstone, it all came rushing back to me: the beautiful descriptions of the English landscape, the wonderful use of words (some of which barely get used these days), the witticisms...but mostly, I didn't realize how much I missed catching a glimpse of quotidian life and living in that time period, temporarily (in this case, life in mid-19th century York).

The Moonstone is largely known as the More...

2 comments like (4 people liked it)

Feb 23, 2009

Jennifer rated it:

Wilkie Collins has the remarkable ability to keep me on the edge of my seat waiting to find out what's going to happen next, only to leave me not caring much in the end.

Credited as being the first detective novel, the story of the lost Moonstone, an Indian religious treasure stolen by a British family centuries before, is told through the butler and other characters as they seek to find the culprit who stole it out of Rachel Verinder's room. It's fine as a detective story, and the f More...

3 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 01, 2009

Katharine rated it:

The Moonstone

I have read The Woman in White and I'll be honest -- I wasn't so impressed. I skimmed parts of the middle section, I admit, but my overall impression was of Gothic cliches, an unlikeable hero and heroine, and a soppy romance. But I've heard The Moonstone mentioned as the first and greatest detective story so many times, that when I found a copy at a garage sale I thought I might as well give Collins another try. (I am eternally hopeful when it comes to the classics.) Tha More...

3 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jun 14, 2010

Bettie rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

3 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jun 05, 2008

Kevin rated it:

One of the earliest examples of Detective or Sensation Fiction, The Moonstone does not disappoint for strong narrative or intriguing characters. The novel is essentially epistolary, with four or five main characters all recording their knowledge of the famous eponymous, stolen from India by a British soldier and rumored to be cursed. Although Collins does not use the multiple narrators to establish multiple viewpoints of a similar scene, he does establish a certain amount of cynical distance bet More...

1 comment like (3 people liked it)

Apr 20, 2008

Dfordoom rated it:

The Moonstone, published in 1868, occupies an important place in the history of the crime novel. Wilkie Collins certainly didn’t the invent the detective story, but he was one of its earliest exponents and the huge success of his “sensation novels” such as The Woman in White and The Moonstone helped to create the market for this genre, and thus contributed to the detective fiction boom of the late 19th century. The Moonstone is more than just a crime story. Collins combines his mystery with s More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

May 02, 2008

Dan rated it:

Lauren's review and Anna's comment let me know I'd probably like this book. I have to say I found it far better than I expected even with those recommendations.

The Moonstone is a detective novel with somewhere around eleven detectives--each piecing together their own small part and only in their sharing, contrasting, and comparing does the whole picture become available to the reader. The book moves from tense to funny with great ease, and for a while it feels like it might be a draw More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 09, 2012

Debra rated it:

Stephen King recommended author and book. King referred to Wilkie's works as "great mystery/suspense novels" in Chapter 3 of Berkley's 1983 paperback edition of Danse Macabre.

Wow, the first detective novel in history, written while Collins was ill with rheumatic gout and his mother was dying. Everyone's a suspect in what appears to be an insolvable crime. Intrigue, adventure, and wry humor. Definitely a must for mystery fans.

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Oct 04, 2010

Sasha rated it:

The Moonstone is a very satisfying mystery. The story traces the progress of a famous and revered yellow diamond and its mysterious disappearance after an 18th birthday dinner. The story is told from the first-person perspective of different characters, a device also used in The Woman in White, to good effect.

The protagonists are very likable and sometimes very amusing, as are some of the more minor characters. The plot contains a myriad of twists and turns that kept me guessing abo More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 10, 2011

James rated it:

After a few false starts, I was determined to finally read 'The Moonstone'. I enjoyed the book - a true original mystery. If only you could meet the characters you read about (well, the ones that interest you at least!)...Betteredge is a fellow with whom anyone could have a delightful conversation. I laughed out loud reading Miss Clack's narrative - something I didn't expect at all to do when I started the book. My only criticism is the very drawn-out 'First Period". Perhaps this is wh More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 27, 2009

Cynthia rated it:

I am loving this book so much that I am buying a copy to use in a blog giveaway. It is awesome. I am dying to get back to it to figure out WHAT is going on!!!

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Jan 01, 2010

Michelle added it

"As mentioned by others, this is considered the first detective novel. To me, this is a character novel first and foremost. The narrative is told by various participants and eyewitnesses to the disappearance of the diamond. From an aging servant to a spinster activist to a charming bachelor to a lawyer to a great investigator and more, the different viewpoints not only further along the mystery to the point of resolution, Mr. Collins uses them to share pointed commentary on various chara More...

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Feb 17, 2009

Lizzy rated it:

The Moonstone is a yellow diamond of immense beauty and value. When it is stolen by an overzealous English soldier from its rightful place in the temple of an Indian diety, it is said that a curse will follow wherever it goes, bringing ruin and misery to its possessor until it is returned. In addition, a trio of vengeful brahmans, tasked to retrieve the stone or lose their honor forever, is in hot pursuit. The soldier manages to evade them for a time, but at his premature death, he wills the dia More...

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Feb 15, 2009

Adam rated it:

An early and influential (in terms of both narrative style and genre technique) example of the detective novel, Wilkie Collins’ The Moonstone remains a moderately entertaining read after 140 years and after countless innovations in the genre. Though it is an elaborate tale of intrigue and spectacle, the book’s staying power owes much to the first of its narrators, Gabriel Betteredge, who is head servant in the house from which the Moonstone diamond is stolen at the beginning of the book. Bette More...

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Dec 03, 2008

Johnny rated it:

The Moonstone reminds me that so much of what seems essential to our modern age was foreshadowed by the Victorians. The spark for the whole mystery, the spectacular diamond called the Moonstone, raises questions about foreign intervention across the seas, while the solution to the disappearance of the gemstone is reached through medical experimentation and a rudimentary form of forensics, Scotland Yard with its investigative techniques having been founded only a few years before the setting of t More...

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Nov 26, 2008

Grissell added it

ماه سنگ ماجرای مفقود شدن سنگی مقدس و نفرین شده است که هرجا منزل بگیره همراهش زنجیره ای از آسیمگی و تباهی دیده میشه و تنها انسان پرهیزکار میتونه ازخطرات این سنگ در امان باشه
داستان از جایی آغاز میشه که ماه سنگ به عنوان ارث به ریچل وریندر جوان میرسه و بعد از اون عشق آبرو و ماجرای ازدواجش به سرعت تغییر میکنه و اثرات مخربش در زندگی اقوام خدمتکاران دوستان و حتی کاراگاه خبره ای که مسئول پیدا کردن سنگبود نیز میشه
ماجرای نیمه طولانی ای هست حدود 400 یا 500 صفحه با اینحال نثر قدیمی و بسیارزیباش More...

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Feb 10, 2012

JoLee rated it:

Wilkie Collins' The Moonstone is considered England's first detective novel. Collins, a contemporary of Charles Dickens, crafts a tale about the disappearance of a Indian diamond, the moonstone. He tells the story through the words of several narrators, each of whom knows the details of only one particular point in the case. I enjoyed this method of tale-telling.

I really enjoyed The Moonstone. At different points I suspected each one of the major characters. They all seemed to have amp More...

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Nov 19, 2011

Eliza rated it:

Un magnifique diamant jaune, appelé Pierre de lune, a été dérobé en Inde par un colonel britannique en guise de butin en 1799. A sa mort, bien que brouillé avec sa soeur, Lady Julia Verinder, il lègue le diamant à la fille de celle-ci, miss Rachel Verinder. Mais le premier soir où Rachel le porte, en compagnie de ses cousins, Godfrey Ablewhite et Franklin Blake, tous deux épris de la jeune femme, le diamant disparaît dans la chambre même de Rachel. La police est amenée à mener l'enquête et, faut More...

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Sep 21, 2011

Amy rated it:

Huge disappointment. I loved Collins’ The Woman in White, but this one just didn’t thrill me. It took a while for me to even become invested in the storyline. For more than half the book, I didn’t really care “whodoneit.” I was really only intrigued for the last 50 pages when things that seemed predictable actually took an unexpected turn.

The suspense is detrimentally drawn out, leaving little hope of resolution and therefore little gratification from chapter to chapter. For those wi More...

1 comment like

Sep 10, 2011

Maia rated it:

After Edgar Allan Poe, this book really invented the detective story. It has everything: an eccentric detective, a stolen jewel, a love triangle, a beautiful woman, a chase through the streets, and an ending which sent a jolt through my spine like I'd been hit on the head with a poker.

After that there's not much to say. The humor, especially in Betteredge's part of the narrative, never fails to make me smile, and I love reading from several different perspectives, especially Miss Clack More...

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